Let’s hope today, in the UK at least, marks a bold new step in eliminating discrimination against mental illness. Three cheers, trousers down and six of the best as they’d say in Eton!

As some of my followers will know, railing against the mindless discriminations that masquerades as harmless banter, like ‘fruitloop’ or ‘nutcase’ or ‘wacko’ etc is a repeated cause celebre of mine, but this legislations aims to hit at much more serious issues.

Did you know for example that simply going to your Doctors for a course of anti depressants means your record results in you being disbarred from serving on a jury? A short bout of post-natal depression can result in you being able to take a full part in civic life. Ridiculous!

Forget the bog standard rules on Unfair Dismissal Laws, under the Companies Act an employee or Director could be removed from his/her role by reason of mental health.

So the legislation is long, long overdue.

I hate stats as most are made up on the spot to make a point, but the evidence is overwhelming that a combination of living longer and the pressures of modern life have seen an explosion in mental health illnesses. It would seem that 1 in 4 of us will experience serious mental problems at some point in our lives. But of that number less than 20% will seek treatment – hardly surprising when the reward for doing so is to be labelled by the system and disenfranchised. In 1991 9 million prescriptions were written for anti-depressants. By 2011 that number had risen five-fold to 47 million. If that doesn’t scare anyone I don’t know what will. A damning indictment on modern life.

Placing barriers to getting treatment by effectively punishing people for admitting they need help is frankly barbaric, but my guess is that those with mental illness had no idea how the law is framed against them , and have more likely focussed on the blind moronic insulting mentioned at the start of this article.

So three hip hips and a yah-boo sucks to the nonsense, and here’s to a more civilised approach as from today. I hope so!

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Cool article, Kit, thanks and hooray for what you do to bust mh stigma. Curious, can you tell us what references were used for your article’s's stats? Your ideas and areas of expertise inspire me in thinking about these issues and in my own efforts with mental health procovery advocacy. Best, G

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